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Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

bbc.com

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Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#51

Post by bcraven »

finid wrote: post #13

If that part of Africa splits from the rest of the continent, it will just be like Madagascar, which has been drifting away from Africa since we started noticed.

Madagascar and Mozambique may be on different plates but they're actually separated by the Davie Ridge, a transform zone. You can see it nicely imaged in the seismic in this report:

http://www.iongeo.com/content/documents/Resource%20Center/Ar...

Then again, this zone does end up in the East African Triple Junction so you are technically correct.

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#53

Post by bcraven »

samplatt wrote: post #24
btilly wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Earth has a continental drift cycle where we form a supercontinent, which changes the circulation pattern, the supercontinent breaks up, the pieces drift around the world, and then recombine into a supercontinent again. The last supercontinent was Pangea Asia, Europe and Africa are what is left and they are continuing to break up. The next one will meet where the Pacific plate now is. So this starts as a rift, th…

Isn't it a bit early to be calling it a cycle? I mean, we've not even completed one full iteration yet. Unless I'm wrong, and the tectonic plates existed and were moving long before the oceans did?

No we have plenty of evidence of previous cycles. It's called the Wilson Cycle:

http://csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/Fichter/Wilson/Wilson.html

For further reading I can recommend 'Supercontinent' by Ted Nield.

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#54

Post by bcraven »

themitchnz wrote: post #30
mmanfrin wrote: post #6

A single inlet, attached to the Red Sea -- wouldn't this be a Sea and not an Ocean ? Also a story like this without a map is very annoying; my best guess as to where it is is here: https://www.google.com/maps/@10.1384475,40.4893819,818636a,2...

This is the rift here. The three features running top to bottom from slight left to slight right. https://www.google.com/maps/@11.6842232,40.6702185,80711a,20... This is where the explosion was https://www.google.com/maps/@12.642073,40.5202369,1118a,20y,...

"three features"?

No the rift is here:

https://i.imgur.com/opOaQUp.jpg

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#55

Post by igravious »

bcraven wrote: post #47
notyourwork wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Article is from 2010 btw. Thank you for pointing this out. I find a tendency to not seek out date of publish and assume content from places like hackernews is current. From 2010 feels a lot less like current events which is part of what I read the front page here. New years resolution is to check dates and sources of articles, thanks!

I'm seeing the title listed on HN as "Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010) (bbc.com)" Is this something only I can see, or was it edited since your comment?

Their comment is from 10 hours ago. New feature proposal for HN, little edited label/flag next to titles that have been changed by the mods.

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#57

Post by zeristor »

notyourwork wrote: post #7
vermontdevil wrote: post #2

TL;DR a split in Ethiopia is about 65km long. It'll eventually split the African Continent in 10 million years. Hold off the oceanfront land speculation. Article is from 2010 btw.

> Article is from 2010 btw. Thank you for pointing this out. I find a tendency to not seek out date of publish and assume content from places like hackernews is current. From 2010 feels a lot less like current events which is part of what I read the front page here. New years resolution is to check dates and sources of articles, thanks!

I reckon things haven't changed much in the last several years.

There's glacial, and then there's continental drift.

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#58

Post by zeristor »

WildUtah wrote: post #26

Americans don't need to travel so far to see an ocean being born. The block-fault zone from the Sea of Cortez up through most of Nevada is pulling apart rapidly and has already created 500 miles of inlet between Baja California and mainland Mexico. Much of the next few hundred miles north through the Salton Sea and Death Valley is already under sea level and all of Nevada has thinning crust that will eventually fall…

And yes, Wikipedia lists the Valleys of Nevada:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_valleys_of_Nevada

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#59

Post by has2k1 »

beautifulfreak wrote: post #32
mmanfrin wrote: post #6

A single inlet, attached to the Red Sea -- wouldn't this be a Sea and not an Ocean ? Also a story like this without a map is very annoying; my best guess as to where it is is here: https://www.google.com/maps/@10.1384475,40.4893819,818636a,2...

This version of the story included a map. http://mgafrica.com/article/2015-03-31-bye-bye-east-africa-t... Here's the map image alone: http://cdn.mg.co.za/crop/content/images/2015/03/31/easplitma...

Sudan and Egypt do not like that outcome. They would have no more Nile.

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#60

Post by zeristor »

"It will pull apart, sink down deeper and deeper and eventually... parts of southern Ethiopia, Somalia will drift off, create a new island, and we'll have a smaller Africa and a very big island that floats out into the Indian Ocean."

This sounds like the sequel to Madagascar

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